Pittsburgh Campaign for Democracy Now!www.pcdn.org

The Pittsburgh Campaign for Democracy Now! was formed
in early 2003 with the goal of bringing the the program Democracy Now! to a radio
station in Pittsburgh. With the cooperation of CMU's student-run
radio station WRCT, we have achieved
this goal. The program is now on at 88.3FM every weekday at 8am. Our
main work has now shifted to keeping the show on this station, and
promoting it to increase the number of listeners.

DN! is hosted by Amy Goodman, is produced in New
York and is distributed by the Pacifica Radio Foundation. A
typical show has a news summary, followed by in depth coverage of a
few stories, frequently with interviews of the participants. Usually
the stories are very important ones that are getting scant attention
in the mainstream corporate media, including NPR and PBS. Recent
examples include analysis of the 2004 Ohio election, the stories of
soldiers who refused to go to war, or the latest Whitehouse scandal.
In addition to WRCT, you can watch the show live at 8am every weekday
on Pittsburgh Community Television (PCTV 21 on cable), and you can
also listen to it live and archived on the internet.

Much has been written about the terrible problems with the
US mainstream/corporate media system. [For example, see
FAIR,
Free Press,
Daily Howler,
Media Matters.]
Without a functioning media, democracy
itself is impossible. Here's Amy Goodman describing
one egregious example:

The media reflects the establishment consensus. And before
the war the Democrats joined the Republicans, for the most part, in
supporting the invasion. And so, because the media brings you that
very small spectrum between the Democrats and the Republicans, when
the Democrats agree with the Republicans they bring you no spectrum of
opinion. So you had mainstream America against the invasion. And you
had, I won't call it a mainstream press I will call it an "extreme
press." You had this extreme press instead beating the drums for war
-- the four major nightly newscasts out of 393 interviews they did in
the week leading up to and after Colin Powell's address -- push for
war at the United Nations, of the 393 interviews, three were with
anti-war representatives. That does not represent mainstream
America. Mainstream America was for more inspections and
diplomacy. The majority of people in this country. That was a media
that just iced out dissent.

The importance of keeping this program on the air is obvious the
moment you listen to it.

Of course money is needed to pay for the program, pay for the
equipment, and to promote the program. Donations are welcome. If you're involved with
a local company that would be interested in underwriting the program,
please contact me.

If you don't have money to donate, then you can still help by
getting involved with airing the show or with
helping to promote the show. Now that the show is on WRCT every day,
then we can begin the work of publicizing it. Plans include designing
and printing flyers, passing them out, posting them, putting up
billboards, contacting the media, getting underwriting for the
broadcast from local businesses, etc.

We've created a mailing list of people interested in this project.
It's used to inform listeners in case of problems, announce plans, and
solicit help. You can join the list or see all previous posts here.